Bri­an Lewis

The medal bonus for Rio 2016 Olympics in Brazil will be US$10,000 for an in­di­vid­ual gold medal, US$8,000 for sil­ver and US$5,000 for bronze. While in the re­lay it will be US$20,000 for gold, US$15,000 for sil­ver and US$10,000 for the re­lay bronze. Many peo­ple have fo­cused on track and field in the con­text of the re­lay but the re­lay bonus will al­so ap­ply for swim­ming and the team sprint in cy­cling.

Giv­en that the con­cept of a medal bonus was on­ly in­tro­duced for the first time in T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) his­to­ry for this year's Toron­to Pan Amer­i­can Games what some con­sid­er to be a hefty in­crease in the dol­lar amount for the Olympics has come as a sur­prise.

The Olympic Games is the pin­na­cle event in world sport. Win­ning an Olympic gold medal and be­com­ing an Olympic cham­pi­on is the dream.

The TTOC, as the sole and ex­clu­sive au­thor­i­ty and rights hold­er for the Olympics and all mul­ti sport events sanc­tioned by the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC), must set the tone in re­spect of en­sur­ing that both the in­trin­sic and ex­trin­sic pres­tige, sta­tus and re­al­i­ty of the ac­co­lade of Olympic cham­pi­on is main­tained.

Some 10,500 ath­letes will trav­el to Rio with the dream of climb­ing the podi­um to re­ceive one of the 305 medals up for grabs.Great acheive­ments don't usu­al­ly just hap­pen, they start with am­bi­tious goals. At the TTOC we must proud­ly set am­bi­tious goals know­ing that in do­ing so we will de­fy his­to­ry.

There are larg­er na­tions with larg­er pop­u­la­tion num­bers and more mon­ey to spend and they are pre­pared to in­vest mil­lions of dol­lars in prepa­ra­tion, in­no­va­tion, tech­nol­o­gy and the suc­cess of their ath­letes and teams for Olympic podi­um suc­cess.And as such there are many who feel that set­ting a medi­um term goal of 10 or more Olympic gold medals by the year 2024 is a fan­ta­sy.

But those who doubt that the quest for Olympic gold is a se­ri­ous pur­suit are un­der­valu­ing first­ly the enor­mous po­ten­tial and tal­ent of the ath­letes in T&T.The Olympic Games is the World's biggest sport­ing event.T&T in win­ning to date 18 Olympic medals since mak­ing its Olympic de­but in 1948 has shown the Olympic world that the twin-is­land re­pub­lic with a pop­u­la­tion of 1.3 mil­lion that we can shine on the big stage.

T&T can build on those 18 Olympic medals.We have in T&T, ath­letes who are brave, am­bi­tious and tal­ent­ed. What they need is the sup­port of those who sin­cere­ly be­lieve in them.The 10 to 15 years that it takes to de­vel­op in­to an Olympic or world cham­pi­on is a jour­ney.

Just as the ath­lete is re­quired to show for­ti­tude, re­silience, per­se­ver­ance, courage and an in­domitable will and de­ter­mi­na­tion, the same char­ac­ter­is­tics must be shown by those who pro­fess to care about our ath­letes.There are those who un­der­es­ti­mate the sup­port that is need­ed and ques­tion the in­vest­ment re­quired.

That the coun­try and the peo­ple of T&T are the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the pa­tri­ot­ic ef­forts of our sports­men and women is or should by now be un­ques­tioned.Our elite sports­men and women make in­cred­i­ble per­son­al and ca­reer sac­ri­fices in ser­vice of T&T.

The two Olympic gold medals won by T&T at the pres­ti­gious Olympic Games unit­ed the twin-is­land re­pub­lic. The pos­i­tive im­age and in­spi­ra­tion and mo­ti­va­tion­al vibes touched chil­dren, youth and young peo­ple across com­munties, race, re­li­gion and class bar­ri­ers.

�2 Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee. Sup­port #10Golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund make your do­na­tions to any branch of Sco­tia­bank ac­count 171188 . The NL­CB Go­ing for Gold In­stant Mon­ey Game is ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing the Olympic Dream.